In a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material (hereinafter sometimes referred to simply as “light-sensitive material”) for subtractive color photography, a color image is formed by dyes of three primary colors of yellow, magenta and cyan. In the color photography that uses the current p-phenylenediamine-series color-developing agent, an acylacetoanilide-series compound is used as a yellow coupler. However, the hue of the yellow dye obtained from the yellow coupler is tinted with red, due to inferior sharpness at the foot portion of a peak in interest of the absorption curve at the longer wavelength side (that is, on the absorption curve, the peak in interest has subsidiary absorption at its foot portion at the longer wavelength side), which renders it difficult to obtain a yellow hue of high-purity. Further, there is the problem that, due to the low molecular extinction coefficient of the yellow dyes, large amounts of both the coupler and silver halide are needed to obtain a desired colored density. Therefore, sometimes it results in increasing film thickness of the light-sensitive material, and this consequently reduces the sharpness of the obtained color image. Further, the above-mentioned yellow dyes, which are easily decomposed under the conditions of high temperature and high humidity, or the conditions of light irradiation, have insufficient image stability after development processing. Consequently, improvement of these problems is desired.
In order to solve such problems, the acyl group and the anilido group were improved. Recently, as improved couplers of the conventional acylacetanilide-series, there are proposed, for example, 1-alkylcyclopropanecarbonylacetanilide-series compounds, as described in JP-A-4-218,042 (“JP-A” means unexamined published Japanese patent application); cyclomalonic acid diamide-type couplers, as described in JP-A-5-11416; pyrrole-2 or 3-yl- or indole-2 or 3-yl-carbonylacetanilide-series couplers, as described, for example, in European Patent Nos. 953870A1, 953871A1, 953872A1, 953873A1, 953874A1 and 953875A1. The dyes formed from these couplers were improved in terms of both hue and a molecular extinction coefficient, compared with the conventional ones. However, they are still deficient in image stability. Further, owing to their complicated chemical structure, the synthesis route became longer, and consequently cost of the couplers became higher, causing a practical problem.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,149 proposes acetoanilide-series couplers to which N-alkyl-4-pyrimidone is bonded. However, dyes obtained from these couplers are still inferior in hue, especially sharpness at the foot portion of a peak of the absorption curve at the longer wavelength side. Further, they are insufficient in fastness to light. Therefore, there is a need to improve these problems.